The Hero Pawnee Deserves
by Bexish
Summary: Leslie shows up at Ben's house looking for April, but instead finds him dressed as a certain superhero. Takes place following Pawnee Rangers.


Author's Note: I've never written Parks and Rec fic before but was inspired after rewatching the pilot and hearing Tom talk about Leslie dressing up as Batman. This is my first attempt at writing these characters so criticism would be appreciated!

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"April! It's Leslie! Open the door! It's very important!" Leslie knocked repeatedly on the door of April and Andy's house. She only meant to knock a few times, but she'd had so much coffee (a nice medium roast with two creams and five sugars) that morning that her hand just kept going. After all of the Pawnee Goddesses had been picked up from their camping trip she had rushed to the office to plan Ron's new wilderness group only to find April's cell phone sitting on her desk so she had dropped everything in order to return it to her.

The problem with April forgetting her phone at work meant that Leslie couldn't call her and tell her to answer the door, which she had done in the past with varying degrees of success. Telling April City Hall was on fire had only worked the first time. Leslie's knocking was not in vain, however. After a moment the door opened, only it wasn't April on the other side.

"Leslie… Hello," Ben said, after a pause. Leslie flushed. In her haste she had forgotten that the odds of running into Ben at his home on a Sunday were quite high. Stupid Ben, with his cute face that she wasn't allowed to kiss anymore thanks to this whole running-for-city-council thing.

"Hi, Ben. Or is it Batman now? Batben?" Ben looked down at what he was wearing, his eyes widening in horror.

"Oh, this is just, uh, I didn't think… Tom made me buy it," he finished lamely. "He saw me eating soup and made me come with him to get poked with needles and buy cashmere things. He did. I didn't. I bought this. I should return it. It's really kind of –"

Leslie shook her head. "You can't return things from Treat Yo Self day," she said apologetically. "That's rule number four."

"What are the first three rules?" Ben asked, looking deeply unsettled.

"It doesn't matter," Leslie said, taking a long look at Ben's Batman costume. It wasn't quite the same as his impression of Ronald Reagan but she had to admit that he looked great. Even in a cape. "Is April here? I have her phone." As adorable as Ben looked with his fake muscles, Leslie was on a mission. A mission that now included not making out with her ex-boyfriend even though she really wanted to.

"No, she and Andy said something about going ice skating," Ben said, looking back into the empty house.

"It's 70 degrees," Leslie pointed out.

Ben nodded. "Yeah… I don't know when they'll be back. But you can leave her phone here. I'll give it to her later."

"Okay. That works." Leslie went to hand him the phone, but she couldn't quite hold it all the way out to him. If she gave him the phone then she would have no excuse to stay. That was exactly how it should have been, of course. Ben had willingly sacrificed their relationship so that Leslie could live out her dreams of being a city councilwoman. The least she could do was leave him and his Batman costume in peace. Sure, they were still technically friends and everything, but she really wanted to kiss him on his stupid Batman face and she wasn't allowed to. It would be easier if she just went home.

Ben reached for the phone, but Leslie pulled it back. "Leslie," Ben said warningly. "I can't give April her phone if you don't—"

"I had a Batman costume once," Leslie said, tucking the phone in her pocket. "It was six years ago. Or seven. I think it was seven years ago. We had a Halloween party at work and I dressed up as Batman. Tom said I should have dressed up as Batgirl because people were going to think that I was a guy but all the Batgirl costumes were really degrading and I didn't have the right boots for it anyway." Ann had good boots that would work for Batgirl, though. Maybe this Halloween she and Ann could go as Batman and Batgirl.

"Leslie, I really think that you should—" It was hard to tell with the mask on, but Leslie thought that Ben was getting annoyed. She should have left, but she chose to talk faster instead.

"Anyway, I had a couple of drinks," she said. "It might have been more than a couple, actually. I think Tom was egging me on. And then someone burst into City Hall, saying that someone was outside spray painting graffiti on the building. I was ready to call the cops since the security guard had already gone home, but Tom said it would be better if I went out there and talked to them because they would be more scared of me than they would be of the police."

"And did you?" Ben asked. He was still standing in the doorway with his hand on the door, like he was about to close it at any minute. She really didn't want him too, but her story was rapidly coming to an end. Truth be told, she didn't exactly remember many of the details from her caped crusade. Okay, fine. Any of the details.

Leslie took a step forward and ever so casually leaned against the door frame so Ben couldn't shut her out of his home and possibly life forever. "Of course I did. I was Batman. It's what Batman does." The next part of the story, at least the way Tom had told it, wasn't so heroic though. "But the people spray painting the building were actually some jerks from the middle school and they laughed at my costume. I very heroically detained them until the cops got there but the cop just gave them a warning and drove them home. He didn't even thank me for catching the criminals." Tom said Leslie had gotten a bit belligerent with the cop because she had told her to find someone to drive her home but she decided to leave that part out because it wasn't cute. Not that she was trying to be cute or anything.

"Tom tells the story a lot better than I do," Leslie said, peeking around Ben and looking at April and Andy's house. There was the couch she and Ben had made out on when April and Andy were out somewhere. There was the table where he had served her calzones that he made. They were just pieces of pizza that were harder to eat but he made them so good. And there was Ben's bedroom door, which opened into a bedroom that contained a bed where other wonderful things had happened.

"Leslie…" Ben held out his hand, clearly waiting for the phone. He sounded exhausted. She was exhausting him.

She took the phone out of her pocket and started to pass it to him, but hesitated. "I… I don't want to be broken up anymore," Leslie said quietly. "Did we really have to break up?"

"You know we're not supposed to be dating," Ben said firmly, but not unkindly. "If it got out your campaign would be over before it even started. We're still friends, though. We can always be friends."

Friends. The romantic consolation prize. The participation ribbon of the dating world. The relationship equivalent of getting a C- on a test you studied really hard for. Leslie sighed. "What if we still make out but we're both dressed as Batman so no one knows it's us?"

Ben smiled and, to Leslie's surprise, stepped back and open the door wider. "Do you want to come in for a little while? I can make coffee."

"Coffee the way I like it?"

"With whipped cream and four sugars? I think I can handle that." Ben hovered by the door, looking absolutely ridiculous in his Batman costume. Ridiculously adorable. "So, are you coming in?"

Just friends, Leslie reminded herself. She and Ben were just friends now. Platonically so. "Lead the way, Batman."

And after the campaign… maybe they could go get coffee.


End file.
